At last, amid a deluge of interesting but not all that useful books on behavioural economics and decision-making comes one offering something tangible to readers.

As you can probably guess from the title, this book examines why good leaders make mistakes and what the rest of us can learn from them. US-based Finkelstein, best known for his previous book, Why Smart Executives Fail, has teamed up with two directors from Ashridge Business School to compile a database of well known mistakes.

They then analysed them, teasing out lessons along the way. These major mistakes from politics (the reaction to hurricane Katrina; Tony Blair's decision to go to war in Iraq; the Bay of Pigs) and business (Quaker's acquisition of Snapple; Samsung's foray into cars), allow them to test theories on familiar case material.

It makes for a compelling read, with a theory based around four sources of error and four safeguards. If there's a slight underplaying of the benefit of hindsight, the insights offered make up for it.

Harvard Business Press, £17.99